Presented by Dr. Bob Lawrence
Jazz Piano Skills
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Without question the most complicated skill for pianists to wrap their mind around, to get under their hands, to make sense of. It's the skill of voicings, right? Voicings can be like fish in line. They can get tangled up very quickly, a mess. They can become a mess very quickly. So what I thought I would do...
My students here at the Dallas School Music requested that I put together some quick videos on voicings that they can watch, so I thought, the heck, I will put that video together, make it available on YouTube as well. So I approach voicing major chords. This video is about major voicings. I'm going to do other ones, videos dealing with the other sounds of music, dominant, minor, half-dimension, diminished as well. But this video specifically deals with major voicings. And there's four ways I would...
that I go about voicing that I would recommend starting with. Number one, your traditional block voicings, root position, first, second, third inversions. I'm going to show you those here briefly. And then traditional shell voicings or rootless voicings, contemporary shell voicings, and then also two-handed structures. All right. And for each one of these types of voicing types, I would recommend two options.
when it comes to your traditional shells, contemporary shells, and two-handed voicings. Of course, with your blocks, you have the root, first, second, third, and versions. So there's really four with the block voicings, four options. And then you have two options, option A, option B, for your traditional shell voicings, contemporary voicings, and two-handed structures. So let me demonstrate these for you. I'm gonna actually place them in the context of time.
with a backing track so that you can hear them. So here we go. Here's traditional C major. Your traditional root third, five and seven block voicing. Then of course, you should be able to voice this in its inverted shapes, right? All three inversions. Then you have traditional rootless voicing, three, seven, nine. And then,
A 7-3-5 rootless voicing, traditional shows. more contemporary sound would be what we call our quarto voicings or fourth-d voicings. I have a 3-6-9 in my left hand or a 7-3-6 in my right hand. Left hand, I'm sorry. Now for both hands, two notes in the left, three in the right. I have three and six in my left.
9, 5, and 7 to my right, or 7 and 3 in my left with the 6, 9, and 5 in my right.
it. Right? Very fast, very quick, but that is what I would recommend starting with. Let's not make it any more complicated than that. Four options. Your block voicings, traditional rootless shells, your contemporary shells, and two-handed structures. Okay? If you have any questions whatsoever, by all means, my contact information is down below. Feel free to reach out to me. Happy to answer any questions that you may have. If you are not a member of Jazz Piano Skills, I would invite you to
to become a member. There's a podcast every week that you can take advantage of, all kinds of educational materials to tap into, as well as hundreds of podcast episodes to benefit from as well. If you decide to join, I'm gonna put a coupon down below for a membership discount, so feel free to take advantage of that. And again, let me know if you have any questions. Always happy to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano.